Do Gamers Really Need HDTV?

Gamasutra has up an article, their latest in the 'Analyze This' series, exploring whether gamers are really clamoring for the HD era ... or if the only people looking forward to HD gaming are the game makers. All three analysts seem to think HD is very important, but with varying levels of fervency. From the article: "On the Nintendo front, Nintendo has sacrificed graphics that can be viewed by the minority for a price that can benefit the majority. So, no, I don't think that they've made a mistake in the short run. Over the long run, we'll have to see: If HDTV adoption rates accelerate, the differences between the Wii and the Xbox 360 and PS3 may become more important, and it may end up that sell-through of the Wii begins to decline. That's a couple of years away, and my crystal ball isn't quite that clear."

Comments

Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[revlayle]

Wide-spread HDTV penetration will happen when they become commonplace in a variety of retail outlets for a comparable price to what one could purchase a classic CRT-based TV now. Maybe in 4-6 years??? (pure speculation there on my part) By then, Nintendo would recongize that trend and have thier next console take advantage of HDTV resolutions.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[LoverOfJoy]

I could see this potentially happening sooner than the 4-6 years you guess at but even if it happens sooner I don't think Nintendo would find it too difficult to make the switch with a WiiHD if they already made a killing on the regular Wii. As it is, Wii is set to be backward-compatible with gamecube games. It could end up like the shift to a color gameboy.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[thebdj]

You mean ccommon place enough to already be in Wal-Mart? I mean this place is usually far behind technology, and they are the largest retailer in the US. Actually, many HDTV products are available there with 17" LCDs on their website going for around $299. Granted this is almost $100-$150 over comparable sized televisions that are standard definition, but the point is it might not be as far off as some people think.

I think the true test is going to be getting TV stations to broadcast in HD and to get less 4:3 content. This is a problem since most HDTVs are widescreen aspects, so the black bars are on the sides now, and that small widescreen TV looks even smaller with 4:3 content showing. I do think Nintendo was smart though. While Microsoft and Sony expect these things to last in the long haul, Nintendo can sit back and sell consoles without HD and make money. They can also avoid the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war and release their next console 4 or 5 years down the road (if not less) once a potential winner has been anounced. I think they are smart to avoid direct competition so as to avoid the fate of Sega.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[HappySqurriel]

Wide-spread HDTV penetration will happen when they become commonplace in a variety of retail outlets for a comparable price to what one could purchase a classic CRT-based TV now. Maybe in 4-6 years??? (pure speculation there on my part) By then, Nintendo would recongize that trend and have thier next console take advantage of HDTV resolutions. The last statistics I heard on HDTV had 1/4 of new TVs being bought were HDTV compatible and 15% of homes had HDTV TVs inside of them; even if HDTV adoption accelerates most homes will not have a HDTV until 2011/2012 when the next generation begins. Whether this would have any effect on Wii sales is largely questionable being that the entire focus of the Wii seems to be drastically different than either the PS3 or XBox 360; both the PS3 and XBox 360 seem to be trying to find a reason to be in your living room (media center extender and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player) whereas the Wii would be happy to be in a Den/Rec-room where you're less likely to have a HDTV anyways. Now, I know people will think that the lack of "flashy" graphics will hurt Wii sales but I'm not too sure about that myself. With how few pixels are being displayed at 480p (roughy 12.5 Million pixels per second at 30fps/25 Million pixels per second at 60fps) it would be reasonably easy for Nintendo to produce hardware that surpasses the display, with the exception of lacking high quality shaders (which are less noticable at lower resolutions); consider that the Gamecube produced games that produced 15 Million polygons per second and the Wii is rumored to be 2 to 4 times as powerful as the Gamecube (30 Million to 60 Million polygons per second means that, regardless of frame rate, you are producing (mostly) polygons that are smaller than pixels.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[SpookyFish]

Um, no. They are commonplace enough. HDTV sales will outpace SD sales for the first time this year. Morgan Stanley estimates that approximately 26% of households will have at least one set by the end of the year. That number rises to ~68% in 2010.

You can say that 26% this year and 33+% next year isn't wide spread enough, but I beg to differ. Those are also the households with the disposable income to afford not only the console, but the real expense of accessories and games for it.

Nintendo is making a mistake. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean the games won't be fun, but based on perception alone they are missing a major marketing 'checkmark'.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[plover]

Nintendo can sit back and sell consoles without HD and make money. They can also avoid the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war

This is very insightful. By delaying the choice of which expensive technology to embrace, they leave themselves with the guaranteed lowest price point of all major console systems. Also, Nintendo has also traditionally held the children's market, and parents of young children are definitely more price sensitive than the average gamer.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[Anonymous Coward]

The only people that want HDTV in games are marketing companies and the hardware makers.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[Tankko]

Yes, and I've seen these HDTV's and they are HD in that they accept HD input, but the resolution is NTSC. You see them all over the place at Sears and Walmark. That is what most people are buying, and they do look nicer than CRT's because they are digital and LCD. But they are not HD as most people here would think of it.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[revlayle]

Man i must be living in the wrong part of the coutry - i just don't see it happening. Maybe it's me and NONE of my friends have the disposable income anymore. Then again, those of us NOT buying HDTVs aren't buying any SDTVs either.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[Dev59]

Nevermind the consumers who always want flashier graphics, eh?

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya the consumers who want to spend to much on game systems do.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[roseblood]

You mean ccommon place enough to already be in Wal-Mart? I mean this place is usually far behind technology, and they are the largest retailer in the US. Actually, many HDTV products are available there with 17" LCDs on their website going for around $299.

I have a used 21 inch trinitron.

Something like 2000x pixels wide.

That's got 1080 I/P beat hands down. Gamers on the PC LOVE HD. For those who can afford the video cards we already have it too. I'm talking $100 video cards. 1200x pixels at framerates of 30FPS+ (not with all the options turned to max for gfx in the games though.)

So, if you have a PC, and you have $175 laying about ($100 for a video card and $75 for a used CRT) you can get better than HD quality for your games.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[Optic7]

Wide-spread HDTV penetration

That would be awesome! But I'm sure the FCC would censor all that pr0n...

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[kolding]

Actually, Nintendo is probably safe. If I remember correctly, they are supporting 480p TV in 16:9 aspect ratio. That, realistically, will support the vast majority of gamers just fine.

IMHO, HDTV provides 4 major video improvements over "Standard Def" TV, or more precisely, over standard NTSC TV. These are:
1: Improved color model and accuracy. NTSC color is hideous (people say NTSC stands for Never The Same Color). HD's color system allows more accurate color, and more precise changes in the color from pixel to pixel.
2: Progressive Scan
3: Widescreen aspect ratio
4: More scan lines.

Of these, more scan lines is actually the least important. Unless your TV is huge, you really don't see a huge difference between 480p and 1080p until you're far closer than you would be for watching TV or gaming. Even still, motion covers a plethora of sins. It's hard to discern fine detail at all in a moving image. Static images, sure, but not moving ones.

Wii, with a 16x9 progressive scan 480p image will be just fine once people sit down and play it. It may not look as sexy on the spec sheet, but in reality, it will work great. The guys with 108 inch TV's might be able to say "My PS3 looks so much better", but the vast majority of the population, with 42" TV's and smaller, will really say "looks fine to me".

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[jbohumil]

Where I live in Minneapolis all the TV stations are broadcasting their content over the air HD. A lot of it is not 4:3 either. The shows I watch like Prison Break for example I watch in widescreen HD and it looks stunning.

The biggest problem isn't the local network TV stations. It's the damn satellite and cable broadcasts. I have DirecTV and get their HD package, HBO and ShowTime to maximise the HD content, I get a grand total of something like 8 HD stations. They look great, especially HD-Net and the HD Discovery channels, but the number of channels is underwhelming.

Meanwhile all the other content on dozens of satellite channels looks like crap by comparison. Most of it is 4:3 with the black stripes or I can zoom it and lose content. Some of it is letterboxed so I can zoom in to a wide screen format but the resolution is so horrible it's barely watchable.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[HappySqurriel]

Um, no. They are commonplace enough. HDTV sales will outpace SD sales for the first time this year. Morgan Stanley estimates that approximately 26% of households will have at least one set by the end of the year. That number rises to ~68% in 2010.

You can say that 26% this year and 33+% next year isn't wide spread enough, but I beg to differ. Those are also the households with the disposable income to afford not only the console, but the real expense of accessories and games for it.

Nintendo is making a mistake. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean the games won't be fun, but based on perception alone they are missing a major marketing 'checkmark'.

Just as a question, how much of their analysis is dependant on the economic conditions that were present from 2001 to 2006 continuing (that is low unemployment, low interest rates, rising house values and easy to get credit)?

I ask this question because most economists now believe that the United States is heading for an economic downturn that will result in higher unemployment, higher interest rates, falling house values and credit that is harder to get (due to a greater number of bankruptcies); there is massive debate on how severe and long lasting the downturn will be, but the consensus seems to be that it will happen.

Now I could be wrong, but I believe that the number of people who are going to be looking for HDTVs may actually drop in the near future as people become more worried about layoffs and potential long term unemployment.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[Ironsides]

Meanwhile all the other content on dozens of satellite channels looks like crap by comparison. Most of it is 4:3 with the black stripes or I can zoom it and lose content. Some of it is letterboxed so I can zoom in to a wide screen format but the resolution is so horrible it's barely watchable.

If you really want it to look decent, buy an external upconverter. It will resample the SD to HD. It will still be slightly blurry, but should be noticeably better than the upconverter in the TV you are using.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[aichpvee]

Good move on Nintendo's part, sure. Too bad they blew it with their idiotic pricing model. Particularly with the controllers.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[sowth]

Then why not just put a VGA jack instead of HDTV? Computer monitors are more common and generally have all the advantages you stated in one way or another.

Widescreen being optional, however I'm not sure why someone would want widescreen for video games anyway. You are usually (should be) concentrating on the action. The 4:3 ratio is much better for action. Unless there are a lot of stupid cutscenes. Widescreen for movies: yes, for games: just say no. Though maybe party games may work better? For most games I don't see an advantage...

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[non0score]

Really? I think you got it a little mixed up. That's the part of the reason why Nintendo went with a cheaper console and respective games: so they can sell to those without HDTVs. The households with enough disposable income to afford HDTVs are the exact same ones who can afford the 360 and PS3, with a Wii as a second (or third) console. And no, 67% next year is by far bigger than the 33%, not to mention that kids probably play games in their rooms with a SDTV.

I think your argument can't be more wrong.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[Anonymous Coward]

By then, Nintendo would recongize that trend and have thier next console take advantage of HDTV resolutions.

Does it really matter if Mario is in HD?

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[Lumpy]

out of 100 people....

10 are rich and can afford anything. 20 are semi rich and can afford most anything.
70 are poor and haveto make careful decisions on expenses...

If i made a product, I would make a product that is desireable and within reach of the bottom 70 people.

I'll make a crapload more money than anyone aiming for the top 30 based on sheer volume alone.

Maybe if you have some economics background you would have noticed that. Nintendo is going for the most common Denomoniator, poor and lower middle class. and they proved that doing that works.

Nintendo DS outsells the PSP 5 to 1. this is a proven fact, if the PSP was the same price as the DS things would have been very different.

Lower Retail price = more units sold.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[Jorelli]

Framerate 30FPS? Judging by the Gamecube, nintendo values smooth performance. Compare, for example, the framrfate of smash brothers to the framerate of Halo 2. Yes Halo 2 has more polygons and is more complex, but it runs on a beefier machine. I find it much easier to get Halo 2 to frameskip than to get Smash to frameskip. You have to be pretty damn nasty at smash to get it to framskip. Lets not even talk about the 360 games that run on 1080p. Metal of Honor and Perfect Dark are both fairly easy to get to framskip. I don't care how clear the enemy looks, if you are unable to react, you will die. Your death may look prettier, but what's more important, playing the game and having fun and being able to do what you as a human are capable of or looking at some pretty polygons? 30 FPS is half what your eye is capable of seeing. I, for one, would rather have less impressive graphics with a higher frame rate. This is especially important in internet gaming, which is getting more and more popular. I think the most functional example of WHY this is important would be Perfect Dark. The reason for this is that Perfect Dark has (in my opinion) the most well defined hitboxes in any first person shooter I've ever played. You can stand behind an ally and shoot over his/her shoulder with ease. However, it's that much harder to hit your enemy because you have to be spot on, especially when using a weapon that fires in a very tight pattern like a silenced rifle. In this respect, I find Perfect Dark's graphics to be the best of any first person shooter not because of looks but because the graphics are actually functional. Now, when you can miss by moving your crosshair over by one pixel combined with trying to hit a moving target AND you're frameskipping you'll never make that headshot. Oh and for all those that play PC games with 300 frames, way to go you can't even see the difference...real cool. 360 Frameskips on it's HD games. It's graphics system is, in my opinion, inferior (although yes I agree, astechically beautiful and currently the most impressive....when standing still). However, if you are bad at video games and 30 FPS doesn't bother you because you can't react at faster than 1/30th of a second (or 1/5th a second if you're frame skipping) then by all means go with that pretty one. Us real gamers know where our priorities lie. (I'm talking consoles here, I understand PC games can look beautiful and have high frames and I actually love to PC game I just hate the price sticker of having the newest hardware.)

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[Jorelli]

Please cite your source more thoroughly. What geographic region does this research cover? It may be irrelivent. The Wii is a global product. Your argument is fundamentally flawed because the market is not "those with televisions" it is "those that play video games". Therefore the HD argument can be summed up to be dependant on the following:

each of these should be considered in terms of the global market:

• % of homes with a HD television
• % of homes that buy a new television each year
• % of televisions sold that are HD for each year and it's respective growth
• % of homes with video game players
• % of homes where games are played on the main television. This is particularly important. If the majority of video game players are youths and the majority of televisions being purchased are being purchased by a different demographic (i.e. their parents) it is fully within reason that there is a sizable chunk of the television purchasing demographic that will not fit into the video game playing demographic. For example, it is very common for parents to give their old television to their children because it costs them nothing. It is also very commong for parents to say "get that out of my living room" and tell their children to play their games on their older (read: SD) televisions.

I also believe that it is beyond resonable doubt that the amount of homes that contain High Definition televisions that are actively used for game playing is significantly lower than the number of homes that simply contain a high definition television.

Nintendo's strategy is not to take the market but to widen the market. As so, it's important to understand that the market will expand from where it started from; those that play video games currently. This is largely made up of the youth. For those that play on an SD television the one difference between a non-HD and an HD system will be framerate (since the graphics will be comparable). If you've ever played an HD Xbox 360 game pumped up to 1080p with four players you will likely have noticed frame skipping at some point, especially if connected to the internet. I have a friend with an Xbox 360 and a 62" HD television. With the graphics settings turned all the way up, I was no longer impressed once the guns started to go off due to performance issues. Anticipating someone will retaliate with this point I will simply agree with it ahead of time: yes it was a very early release and they are currently unaware of how to get the most out of the XBox 360 at this time. However, christmas is coming soon, so I'm strictly speaking the XBox's performance at this time.

Due to performance reasons, Nintendo's goals to conquer the multiplayer environment, and the current availability of HDequipped gaming televisions, I think Nintendo made the correct choice. For these reasons, as well as the legacy of Nintendo franchise games, I will be buying a Wii without even considering an Xbox as an option. I already have a computer to do all that other non-console stuff.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[EnderWigginsXenocide]

WOW someone needs to rediscover the paragraph.

I can't speak for the parent but if motion pictures work at 24 FPS and a (NTSC) TV screen refreshesh at 30 HZ (two scans at 60hz.) Even if a console can pull more than 30 FPS would it nost be wasted on a TV screen? So I am going to guess the first poster used 30FPS as a point of refrence to match consoles.

That would make sense. If you want to conduct an experiment (even a thought experiment) you make it a point to manipulate your variables descretely.

[snip comments about high framerate being better than pretty gfx]Us real gamers know where our priorities lie.

I guess that means real gamers would not use a game system or PC that is constrained by a display system that is frame limited to 30 full refreshes a second (again assuming NTSC TV.)Thus it follows that real gamers don't use consoles?

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[Jorelli]

Copying Wikipedia only because it's already compiled; this info can be found anywhere:

Video systems frequently use a more complex approach referred to as interlaced video. Broadcast television systems such as NTSC, PAL, and SECAM produce an image using two passes called fields. Each field contains half of the lines in a complete frame (the odd-numbered lines or the even-numbered lines). Thus, while only using the bandwidth of 25 or 30 complete frames per second, they achieve a flicker fusion frequency of 50 or 60 Hz, at the expense of some vertical judder and additional system complexity. The "frame rate" of interlaced systems is usually defined as the number of complete frames (pairs of fields) transmitted each second (25 or 30 in most broadcast systems). However, since a conventional television camera will scan the scene again for each field, in many circumstances it may be useful to think of the frame rate as being equal to the field rate. In contrast to televisions, computer monitors generally use progressive scan, and therefore internet video formats generally do also. The "P" versions of HDTV (typically 720P) also supports progressive scan, as do modern DVD players.

Most computer monitors are 60 frames per second. Hence if you go to your display setting the refresh rate is 60Hz. Since a computer monitor is progressive scan, this is like saying it's capable of being able to display up to 60 Frames per second natively.

A video game console does not show still images like a film projector; it's a completely different way of generating a light pattern. On a film the image changes all at once; it's a series of still images connected in time. On a video screen you have one pixel changing at a time in an ordered fashion; the whole screen is changing from top to bottom and left to right the whole time but you just can't notice. It's kinda like how fluorescent lightbulbs actually flicker on and off at 120 times per second (in america) but you can't tell because it's too fast for the eye to see so it just appears to be on all the time.

From Samsung.com: Spec Sheet for Samsung 40' LCD

You can see that television boasts a 8ms response time, aka up to 125 frames per second. The average display has been showing more than 30 frames per second for quite some time.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[leland242]

"The 4:3 ratio is much better for action."

Play God of War in widescreen progressive scan mode and tell me that.

Re:Nintendo will eatch and adapt

[sowth]

I wish, but I don't want to buy a PS2 and end up dealing with Sony's "it falls apart after a few months of normal use" problems.

And that is what sucks about all this proprietary crap. I should be able to buy any game and play it on any computer. (Game consoles are compters to, just restricted.)

...umm...

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

go ahead and ask any PC gamer if to choose between 640x480 or 1600x1200.

Re:...umm...

[merreborn]

go ahead and ask any PC gamer if to choose between 640x480 or 1600x1200.

Exactly. HDTV is just bringing console gamers up to the resolutions PC gamers have been playing at for years.

Re:...umm...

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

okay bad form to reply to myself, but I should have also said that its pretty much the same as the console world. . . The higher the resolution in the games the better, but I think HDTV will be a necessity once they get to a price that is reasonable for families to choose as their main tv.

Re:...umm...

[MindStalker]

On my 2Ghz? Umm 640x480 any day!

Re:...umm...

[Mishotaki]

It depends on if my machine can run it fluidly at 1600X1200...

I would sacrifice a big part of the resolution for better graphics often , as you don't see that much of a difference after 1024X768 compared to all the options you can put on to get the same framerate....

Re:...umm...

[Chosen Reject]

That's a silly question. Of course we need HD. But that's like asking if we need computers. Why ask that? We already have it.

Oh, the article meant for console gamers. I'm sorry. Yes, they should be allowed to see what real pretty graphics look like I suppose.

Re:...umm...

[nlawalker]

A better question would be to ask a PC gamer to choose between a 18 or 19 inch monitor and a 40 inch behemoth, considering all factors such as price, space, heat, etc.

It's stupid to hold televisions and monitors to the same standards because they evolved in very different directions. TV's got bigger and not clearer because the medium doesn't have a great emphasis on text or fine detail, and people enjoy their large home theaters. Monitors got clearer because no one needed the size when you are inches away from the thing, and text and finely detailed graphics are very important on a PC.

That was all before games came along. Now, since both standards are used to play video games, they are being held up against each other. PC users don't care because they already have what matters to them: resolution. Most people wouldn't know what to do with a 30" monitor if they had one, which wouldn't be the case most of the time anyway because they are so expensive. If you really want more space, you can even get two regular size monitors for cheaper than one huge one and have more screen real estate. The TV viewers on the other hand, they get to keep the size of their screens, AND new technology is making them clearer as well.

Re:...umm...

[MBCook]

Now ask the question of Joe Bob, who bought a new 45" Plasma and watched SD content on it thinking it's HD because he has no clue.

Re:...umm...

[eno2001]

Exactly. Most people have no clue what HDTV actually is other than a bigger wider screen. Then they wonder why they either have black bars on both sides of their picture, or everything looks fat (as in wide, and not hip and cool), or why things widen at the left and right edges of the screen while things in the middle look normal. I'll even go so far as to say that most Slashdotters don't have a clue, they only think they do. To answer the main question that this submission asks: Real hardcore gamers (the kinds who put more interest in their hardware than the game itself) will *think* they need HDTV. But as many people have pointed out, you don't really need it since there really is a point of diminishing returns on this sort of thing. I have a 1920x1080 LCD TV (In other words REAL HDTV, not that 720p crap) and there isn't a game system in the world as of yet that can feed it properly. But I didn't buy it for gaming, I bought it for something much more important: my Linux based media center PC. The gaming on it is just a side effect. (Tux Racer is a lot of fun on it though. ;)

Re:...umm...

[kolding]

Not really.
PC gamers sit 2 feet from their screen.
Console gamers sit 5 to 15 feet away from their screens.

It's a very different way of interacting with your game.

Heck, when I play games on my PC, I hardly ever play more than about 1280x1024 resolution. Beyond that, it doesn't provide significant improvements.

Re:...umm...

[marktoml]

>go ahead and ask any PC gamer if to choose between 640x480 or 1600x1200.

Hell yes I want cheezy poofs!

Re:...umm...

[springbox]

I choose 800x600. Most people don't have monitors large enough to justify using really high resolutions, but they use them anyway.

Re:...umm...

[checkyoulater]

ut I didn't buy it for gaming, I bought it for something much more important:

Just for a moment there, I thought you were going to say for HD Hockey broadcasts. I had my first experience with HD hockey on the weekend, and now I can't think of a better use of the technology.

Re:...umm...

[sowth]

Then why not have a jack for computer monitors instead of HDTV?

Re:...umm...

[iainl]

It's not in the box, because their main market is people hooking them to TVs, but there is a VGA adaptor for both the 360 and the Dreamcast. So yes, if you want resolution rather than a giant screen, you can do just that.

Re:...umm...

[mcvos]

choose 800x600. Most people don't have monitors large enough to justify using really high resolutions, but they use them anyway.

For a 15" monitor that's great, but for a 19" one, I'd hate to use anything less than 1600x1200.

But the real reason for high resolution isn't games (many games automatically reduce the resolution my PC is using), but programming. It's practical to have lots of information on your screen. For most games that aren't Stars!, that's not much of an issue.

Re:...umm...

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

holy crap another Stars! fan? I like that game so much I keep copies of its install file in pretty much every game/music/other folder on each of my harddrives. . .

Re:...umm...

[LKM]

Don't tell me it's finally possible to see the puck!

Re:...umm...

[de Siem]

Just for a moment there, I thought you were going to say for HD Hockey broadcasts. I had my first experience with HD hockey on the weekend, and now I can't think of a better use of the technology.

HD ladies Beach Volleyball

Re:...umm...

[mcvos]

holy crap another Stars! fan?

Some of us are still around. In fact, there's still a small but active community. Best 4X game ever, after all.

But to get this back on topic, the way games like Stars! are distributed can also be very effective: give away a free playable demo, and by entering an activation code, you can turn it into the complete game. Anyone can try it out, and by paying you get more. Most importantly the ability to play against others, which is what the game is all about.

No, we shoudn't need it.

[Vectorman0]

S-Video on a standard definition set should suffice. However, now developers are making games on a HDTV's and don't realize that some things that are made super fine, such as text, can't be made out on a regular set. This can make games very hard to play. I think the biggest push for HDTV is coming from the companies, not the people playing the games.

Re:No, we shoudn't need it.

[PygmySurfer]

Ugh. Even my PS2 looks noticeably better with Component video over S-video - on a 27" Trinitron. S-Video on my 50" DLP would be hideous.

That said, I think the Wii will be fine at 480p. And until the PS3 comes down in price, that's all I'll have.

Re:No, we shoudn't need it.

[Raenex]

However, now developers are making games on a HDTV's and don't realize that some things that are made super fine, such as text, can't be made out on a regular set.

This pisses me off to no end, to the point that I stopped playing games on my 360. That developers don't make sure that their games play well on standard definition is poor workmanship.

The answer...

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer:

No.

Re:The answer...

[adam31]

No, gamers don't need HDTV... however gamers with HDTVs do need HD games for their TVs.

See, HDTVs displaying a low-def signal look really, really terrible. Lo-def CRTs actually benefit games because they blur out the jaggies a little bit, and give a very bright responsive image with good contrast. HDTVs are downsampling and displaying non-native, so the pixelation and smearing just looks awful. Also many flaws, like one pixel cracks between geometry pieces which are normally hidden on CRT, stand out like a sore-thumb on hi-def.

So, get a HDTV for watching HD movies and playing HD games, but keep that old CRT for playing low-def games!

Re:The answer...

[hibiki_r]

That has little to do with HDTV/STV, and a lot to do with the limitations of LCDs. Every slashdot reader knows that running an LCD outside of its native resolution will get you a worse picture. There's HDTVs that still use a cathodic tube, and those have no problem whatsoever displaying a typical NTSC image apropriately.

HDTV!=Flat Panel

Re:The answer...

[ADRA]

I don't know about your setup, but my 50" LCD rear proj Sony plays games amazingly well. If you have a TV with a decent video proceeessor, any half decent source can be made to looook fine. I play Game Cube games on it all the time and they're crisp and smooth. There aren't the interlaced gap issues that some HD sets may suffer from.

Re:The answer...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe in America, but in Japan it has *all* gone plasma and LCD. The only CRT sets still for sale are direct view, and classic 15.7kHz NTSC through and through. There were a few HD CRTs until about 5 years ago, but even they didn't display the full 1125i HiVision signal. They were also heavy as bricks, limited to about 36", had poor geometry and >$3k price tags. Indeed I can't find a single electronics store or online shop that still sells them (and there are no current models) so for the home market at least, all the console HD gamers will be on resolution-fixed displays.

Re:The answer...

[theJamAbides]

It's true... My 42 Sony LCD even has a "game" setting which smooths it out for you. Gamecube games looked amazing, and regular TV looks fine too. Most of the people complaining prob don't even have an HDTV.

Do people really need tv at all?

[npietraniec]

No, but it's nice to have. I didn't really realize what I was missing until I had HD.

Re:Do people really need tv at all?

[MyDixieWrecked]

No, but it's nice to have. I didn't really realize what I was missing until I had HD.

The problem is that a lot of the XBOX360 games are being designed with HD in mind. This observation of mine is especially apparent in most of the newer 360 titles (Dead Rising is the first that comes to mind). The text in that game is completely unreadable on non-HD displays. I've played the game on several non-HD TVs and have always had the problem, so it's not a matter of mine just being fuzzy.

In fact, I wonder if any playtesters of these games played them in non-HD. Even games like Madden have unreadable scores. You'd think they'd model their HUD off NBC's or whatever.

Re:Do people really need tv at all?

[linefeed0]

I guess you haven't watched much sports on TV lately. The people doing the HUDs for some networks (actually, cough cough NBC is a big culprit) seem to also have forgotten that most of their audience doesn't have HD. The winter olympics were particularly bad this way -- the flag icons (already at a horrible aspect ratio) and much of the text was unreadable in standard definition, probably having been designed for European DTV, which is not as high resolution as HDTV but has a much higher adoption rate. Apparently the HUD was done centrally for many countries' broadcasts, but NBC could have at least raised a stink about it if they weren't so busy trying to promote their own HD cable networks. The occasional ESPN experiments with 8 mini screens are also near useless without HD, and there are probably a couple of other examples that have escaped me.

Re:Do people really need tv at all?

[MyDixieWrecked]

I guess it's obvious that I don't watch sports much.

i know NBC has sports (because I worked on the art for Football Night in America; a cheap ripoff of Hockey Night in Cananda, at first glance), but I know there was some football game I watched where I was like "dude! THAT's a decent HUD!"

oh well. I guess I gotta get an HDTV, now.

I've said it once...

[richdun]

...gamers who want HD have been using their PCs as their primary platform with a phat 20"+ LCD attached that can do 1680x1050 or more widescreen. The only thing the next gen consoles promise different from this are console experiences (gamepads, Xbox Live, etc.) and higher poly counts - which we get every 8-12 months when the next generation of video cards come out. But come on, I ran Red Alert 2 at 1280x1024 5 years ago - isn't that technically HD? Running at high res is not going to be some grand new thing to the majority of hardcore gamers.

Re:I've said it once...

[p0tat03]

"...gamers who want HD have been using their PCs as their primary platform with a phat 20"+ LCD attached that can do 1680x1050 or more widescreen."

That's an amazing generalization. Being able to run new top-of-line games on a 20"+ LCD doing 1680x1050 costs quite a bit, both in initial investment and constantly chasing the upgrade curve. I never did it - my PC is still too crappy to play Half-Life 2 at anything above 800x600. I am not inclined to sink thousands into such a machine when now a console can do HD for a fraction of the price.

Assuming a console lifetime of 5 years... $600 for consoles plus some accessories.

vs... $4K+ to maintain a system at good game-ability (ability to run all new games at relative high resolution and settings) over 5 years.

One is affordable for me. The other never was.

Re:I've said it once...

[nojjynb]

$4k+??? You are crazy! I built my first gaming PC for about $600 almost 4 years ago. I also spent $200 on a 19" LCD last year, but that would count as the TV, not the console. When my first PC was "out of date" I sold it for $600 to a friend, and spent that $600 to build an entirely new one. Repeat the selling for the same price and buying a new one again. And what do I have? A system that can play any game out there, looking far better than the last-gen consoles, and it is a frakking computer which carried my through college getting two majors in 4 years. A computer is far more useful then a console! And, I got the additional pleasure of having a new system every year and putting it together (one of the most enjoyable parts)! I was able to UPGRADE whatever I wanted to, whenever. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking on consoles, I own an Xbox and soon a Wii. But a PC is far more cost effective and it is the ONLY way to play a real FPS :P

Re:I've said it once...

[p0tat03]

I would like you to see you build a machine (sans LCD or input devices, to make it easier for you) that can play FEAR on 1440x900 (sort of kind of HD) at high detail (not ultra, just high), for $600. Hell, FEAR at this point is already a year old and considered last-gen.

And while you're bashing motherboards and crawling around in little aluminum enclosures, I hit the on button on my console, have a blast, and I'm done with zero hassle. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy building a new machine as much as anyone, but as I get older I find myself not wanting to be bothered with every tiny detail of my hobbies.

You give the whole "PC's do more than game!" argument that many PC game apologists like to use. Sure. But I don't need that $2K machine to do my work. I'm running on a very comfortable $1000 Mac laptop that goes with me everywhere and is smooth as silk for everything *except* gaming. Total investment cost: $1000 + $600. Don't tell me you can achieve the same kind of work mobility and gaming prowess for THAT kind of price.

Re:I've said it once...

[Chosen Reject]

$4K+?!!?!!?You have seriously got to stop shopping at Alienware. I'll let you in on a little secret: You don't need anything over $1000 to have a gaming computer. In fact I just bought one for under $600 and I have yet to see it start to go slow. I've thrown Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 (including HDR on in Lost Coast) on their highest settings. Not even so much as a slow down. So for less than the price of a PS3 I get a gaming machine with HD and a computer (all jokes about the PS3 being a computer aside). I very much expect this one to go at least 4 years. Understand though that the only upgrade you get on your consoles comes every 4-5 years. So even though lots have advanced in graphics and physics and simulation and AI and crunching power, you get only what little the developers have been able to suck out of a 4 year old system. On a PC you get the exact same, or, if you are so inclined, you can upgrade and get the new bells and whistles at any time you want. So with a PC, you get more with the possibility of more sooner.

Re:I've said it once...

[nojjynb]

I can play FEAR @ 1600x1200 on my 21" CRT at HIGH, 1280x1024 @ Ultra. And, $600 for it. Aaannnddd, my next computer is going to be a desktop replacement laptop... $1400 w/ a docking station to plug into my LCD and periphs, better than my existing box, though that is w/ about a 6% employee discount, w/ the 12 cell battery and TV tuner. How is that for portability and power? And that is w/ a core 2 duo proc. If you are running a comfortable $1000 mac, you could run a PC lappy for $400, but that still wouldn't beat my desktop.

Re:I've said it once...

[Babbster]

But I don't need that $2K machine to do my work. I'm running on a very comfortable $1000 Mac laptop that goes with me everywhere and is smooth as silk for everything *except* gaming. Total investment cost: $1000 + $600.

And even you spent more on your Mac laptop than most people would need to do word processing, web browsing, movie watching, downloading, etc. Most console gamers could slip into a $400 eMachines PC and be perfectly comfortable.

The only way in which PC gaming can even possibly be considered "cost effective" is in terms of the cost of games and the large number of games which continue to be compatible. Of course, since consoles have started to include backward compatibility (PS2, Wii and PS3 all with "true" BC, and the 360 with limited BC), even that factor will fade over time.

That this argument continues to be made is a testament to the overall low accuracy/quality of Interweb fora...

Re:I've said it once...

[GrayCalx]

I built my first gaming PC for about $600 almost 4 years ago.
When my first PC was "out of date" I sold it for $600 to a friend

Heh, awesome you sold an out of date POS computer, to a friend no less, for full price. I can see your Xbox Craigslist ad now...

"Slightly used original Xbox. GREAT CONDITION!!! 1 wired controller. And an awesome game Jet Set Radio Future! THE FUTURE IS HERE! No box/manual. $299. firm."

Re:I've said it once...

[heinousjay]

I can play FEAR @ 1600x1200 on my 21" CRT at HIGH, 1280x1024 @ Ultra. And, $600 for it.

One frame per second doesn't count.

Re:I've said it once...

[p0tat03]

Meanwhile I'm still portable...

I've been sucked into the desktop replacement thing before, and I'm not inclined to do it again. I've been schooled the hard way that performance and mobility are by and large mutually exclusive qualities, and any solution that promises to deliver both usually gets away half-assing it.

As a college student there are two things I do. I work, and I game. I do not game in class, nor do I game at the library, nor at a coffee shop, nor anywhere that isn't home. A desktop replacement laptop only gets in the way of, well, work. I can lug around this MacBook, a relatively slim 5.2lbs and 13.3" screen, and get all my work done. I have no limitations of where I can put the thing - it's not a desktop replacement monster that can't last me an hour on batteries. It lasts a ludicrously long time on battery power, which is more than can be said for any desktop replacement I've ever owned/used.

Oh, and I have a TV tuner for my laptop. It works through USB2 and quite well to boot. Since I really don't watch TV in class or the library, it takes up space in my apartment, not my laptop. Best $50 I've ever spent.

Did I mention that the xbox and its controllers (including all wires and several games) fit into my backpack, and that I can cart it to various places without incident? Try social gaming on a gaming PC, or even moving that sucker.

It's so easy to fall into the "SUV mentality" when purchasing a laptop. "What if I need to ford a river while driving little Johnny to soccer practice?". I've figured out my exact needs, and I don't have anything extraneous in my hardware. I don't have a beast of a video card in my machine "just in case" I need to game on the go, because I simply never do.

Re:I've said it once...

[nojjynb]

40~50 FPS is more than playable
15.4" @ 5 lbs laptop isn't portable? A 7 hour battery isn't long enough? Perhaps you haven't checked out the modern technology behind a strong laptop 0.0
How is a one year old computer an outdated POS? How many /.'ers have a computer that is more than one year old? And trust me, he wasn't extremely technically inclined and had no desire to build his own. He got a damn good deal.
First you say that as you get "older" (implying middle age or older here from your context), you don't want to do things like put together a computer, then you say you are in college, and apparently live there from your comments, so really old, yup.
oh, and my xbox is modded so it is totally worth it :)
There is no "if I need to..." with my PC. I have to have it. Between programming, writing papers, researching, hosting, desigining, and generally amusing myself it is essential and no console can compare to it.
Console's have their place, in the $100-$400 market. They aren't better than PC's, they are different.

Re:I've said it once...

[p0tat03]

Are we even talking about the same things here?

"15.4" @ 5 lbs laptop isn't portable? A 7 hour battery isn't long enough?"

Show me a 15.4" laptop that weighs 5lbs that qualifies as a desktop replacement (i.e., plenty of RAM, large HDD, game-capable video card, etc). Please. And then show me one that has a battery that is realistically rated at 7h (real life performance, pulling the number out of your ass doesn't count). I've only seen a handful of laptops in my life that can run >7h on a single charge, and all of them have been small ultra-portable types, and all while compromising basic features like wifi.

"First you say that as you get "older" (implying middle age or older here from your context), you don't want to do things like put together a computer, then you say you are in college, and apparently live there from your comments, so really old, yup."

Did I at any point imply that I was middle aged? Cripes, I don't need people throwing words in my mouth here. Back in my high school days I'd jump at the opportunity to build a new box. Fast forward a few years and now I'd rather just pull something out of the box, plug it in, and have it do what I want. I've got much more interesting (not to mention mandatory and time consuming) things to spend my time on, I don't want to spend eons tweaking hardware/software so it's "just right" (also part of why I got the Mac).

"There is no "if I need to..." with my PC. I have to have it. Between programming, writing papers, researching, hosting, desigining, and generally amusing myself it is essential and no console can compare to it."

See, I do all of the above, but the realization I made was that the only item in that list that required anything even remotely powerful was gaming. So I separated it from the rest of the those tasks, so I have close-to perfect solutions for both. I've got a very portable laptop that does all of the above *except gaming* perfectly, keeping me mobile with a long battery life, lightweight, and leaving plenty of room on me for other important things. At home I have my Xbox hooked up to a LCD (which serves as a nice extended desktop for the Mac) - all the gaming power I could ever want.

I thought about it for a while before going down this route. I was a major PC gamer at one point, but the best solution for someone like me was to get a portable-class laptop, and a full-on desktop. Economically and logistically that wasn't feasible, so I went for the next best thing. I am now almost exclusively a console gamer - to me it's all the same now. It's entertainment so I can forget about that term paper for a few hours.

Re:I've said it once...

[Gideon Fubar]

play he said. you cannot play a game at 1fps. I have what i'm guessing is a similar setup to the $600 box (i live in .au, so ~au$1000 seems about equivalent) and i can play Fear quite well @ 1280x1024 w/4xaa. Battlefield2, however, slows my system down terribly :/

Re:I've said it once...

[tepples]

Did I mention that the xbox and its controllers (including all wires and several games) fit into my backpack, and that I can cart it to various places without incident? Try social gaming on a gaming PC, or even moving that sucker.

But can your social gaming rig play titles self-published by smaller studios?

Re:I've said it once...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we know that PCs have had higher resolutions for years. But an important point that I think all the "PC is better" crowd is missing is that, resolution aside, a sufficiently large display increases the immersiveness of the game because everything is closer to life size.

Racing games on my 56" HD set feel like I'm actually looking out of the windshield of real car at other real cars, as opposed to looking out of a tiny window at the windshield of a tiny car. Maps and objects are more realistic sizes in FPS games. I don't think a lot of people realize how much this affects your perception of the game until they've actually played those games on a large set. I know I didn't. IMO, this more than makes up for a few lines of resolution.

I'll be doing most of my gaming on my console from now on.

Re:I've said it once...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I though the point was a tv card was cheaper then springing for a nice tv if you all ready dropped the cash on the proverbial 'phat' monitor.

Re:I've said it once...

[powerlord]

First off, you're absolutely right about Alienware, however most PCs I've ended up building for myself seem to run about $1200-1500 (depending on parts). I will admit that I tend to go for a bit more oomph in some areas than most (Memory and Hard Drive), while neglecting Graphics though, so I think it balances.

I'll let you in on a little secret: You don't need anything over $1000 to have a gaming computer.

Just out of curiosity, are we including a legal license for WindowsXP and Virus Protection in that number? (yes I know there are free Virus Scanners, but I've found most of them to more often fisk the machine than help)

In fact I just bought one for under $600 and I have yet to see it start to go slow.

Again, just of curiosity what sort of specs does the machine have?
(CPU/Memory/Video/Audio/Hard-Drive) Not asking for benchmarks, that would be silly (and wasteful of your time), just curious what the hardware itself is like.

So even though lots have advanced in graphics and physics and simulation and AI and crunching power, you get only what little the developers have been able to suck out of a 4 year old system.

True, however there seem to still be fun games coming out for the PS2, and it certainly is more than 5 years old (some of the graphics make my wife stop to watch :) ). Perhaps having one architecture also allows the developers to better customize their toolkit to the target platform, or motivates them to look for solutions that don't just involve 'better hardware'? (better algorithms?, better design?)

Do gamers really need games?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Since when does anything about gaming have anything to do with need. The question is whether or not gamers want HDTV. And you only have to look at the history of increasing PC graphics resolutions to get the answer to that.

Re:Do gamers really need games?

[Red Flayer]

The question is whether or not gamers want HDTV. And you only have to look at the history of increasing PC graphics resolutions to get the answer to that.

Umm, no. That is not the conclusion to draw from the recent history of increasing resolutions -- rather, the conclusion to draw is that video game makers believe that's what gamers want.

Not to digress too far, but the reason I'm more of a console gamer now than a PC gamer is because gaming PCs are too expensive, and most of the newer games require expensive rigs to run well (or they require me to dedicate a box to gaming -- which I cannot do for space reasons). Sure, we all want more polygons and more pixels -- but I'm not willing to pay out the wazoo for those. This is why the Wii is ideal for me, and others like me.

That said, if I played my console games on a honkin' big TV, then I'd want HD -- SD looks miserable on a 60" set unless you sit 20 feet away.

Yes and No

[p0tat03]

Disclaimer: I have an "HDTV" in the form of LCD hooked up to Xbox360.

The whole HDTV argument is kind of moot. The status quo of video gamings certainly do not demand HDTVs, but IMHO that's a limitation that game developers are trying to overcome. For years we've been stuck in the world of ultra-huge text just so it's readable on a crappy tube set. We've been unable to communicate detailed information to the gamer. Think about the resolution as a mode of information bandwidth. The more resolution you have to work with (within limits) means the more data you can pass to the gamer. This is why RTS games work on PCs but not on consoles (beyond the obvious control difficulties) - these games demand that a lot of information (unit health, unit selection, unit status, squads, tactics, waypoints, etc) be visible all at once, which before the HD era has simply not been possible.

The way I see it, the HDTV thing is good. It further reduces the gap between PC and console gaming, allowing game developers to put games that would never have worked on a 480i tube TV on a console. To me this is a lot more than being able to see the tiny glint on a suit of armour - there is more to the HD issue than mere aesthetics.

Re:Yes and No

[Osty]

This is why RTS games work on PCs but not on consoles (beyond the obvious control difficulties) - these games demand that a lot of information (unit health, unit selection, unit status, squads, tactics, waypoints, etc) be visible all at once, which before the HD era has simply not been possible.

While I don't disagree with your point as a whole, I don't think this is the best example. RTS games worked well enough back in the days of 320x240 resolutions (Dune 2, Command & Conquer, Warcraft I). Perhaps modern RTS games wouldn't work well at lower resolutions, but that's just a matter of design. If they had to work with a max res of 640x480, developers would continue to advance the genre. They'd just have to be smarter about how they display information.

On the other hand, the current state of HDTV adoption means that console games still have to work well on SDTV sets. Dead Rising is a great example of how to do it wrong. They used smaller fonts to fit more information on-screen, but ended up screwing SDTV customers in the process. As long as developers have to support SDTV as well as HDTV, don't expect text and information displays to take full advantage of the resolution provided by a 720p or 1080p HD set.

Re:Yes and No

[tourvil]

For years we've been stuck in the world of ultra-huge text just so it's readable on a crappy tube set. We've been unable to communicate detailed information to the gamer. Think about the resolution as a mode of information bandwidth. The more resolution you have to work with (within limits) means the more data you can pass to the gamer.

I love pushing the resolution on my computer when I'm sitting 2 feet from the monitor so I can see more stuff on the screen at once. But I'm not so sure I want to max out pushing info to the screen when it's my TV that's 10+ feet away.

I have a Mac Mini hooked up to my 43 inch HDTV at home. At 720p, the default font sizes for many things in the OS is right at the threshold of being hard to read from my couch. 1080i is pretty much unreadable at that distance. And I have good eyesight with my contacts.

So I rather like the 'ultra-huge text' that console games have, and hope the effective size of text doesn't drop a lot as console games move to HD. (note I don't have an Xbox 360, so I don't know what sizes of fonts those games use)

Re:Yes and No

[lubricated]

Most 43 inch tv's are native at 720p, some of the newer ones might be 1080p. 1080i is interlaced so it may actually be worse than 720p and may be the reason you aren't seeing it as good.

Re:Yes and No

[grammar fascist]

We've been unable to communicate detailed information to the gamer. Think about the resolution as a mode of information bandwidth. The more resolution you have to work with (within limits) means the more data you can pass to the gamer.

This is a fine argument for eventually making HD-exclusive games - which would be enabled by pushing the HD standard to where it actually is standard. It doesn't work so well with systems that have to simultaneously deal with 480i and HD, though.

Re:Yes and No

[Babbster]

If the TV is fixed pixel (usually in a resolution around 720p) it would probably be less about the interlacing and more about the scaling from 1080i to the resolution of the panel. Done poorly, this scaling can produce artifacting that would make discerning smaller details (like small test) problematic. I've been playing Dead Rising (an example of a small-text HD game) in widescreen 1080i on my 27" 4:3 HDTV from 6-7 feet away and haven't had a big problem reading the text - this despite even my corrected vision being suboptimal...

Not so good journalism

[steveo777]

or photography at least. Not sure what you would call a bad screenshot. But on the second page they complain for the second time about how Capcom's Dead Rising had illegible print on standard (even 480p) TVs. Yet, they do not show what the text looks like, just a shot of Frank smooshing some zombies with a park bench. I'm not in need an example, I've played it on a 36" 480p TV (and yes it's still very difficult to decypher most of the words). The game has text on the bottom of the screen well over half the time you're playing, it wouldn't be hard to get a screen capture of the script.

Maybe I'm missing something?

[XxtraLarGe]

I've seen King Kong running on the XBox 360 on an LCD screen at Walmart and was underwhelmed. Everything looked "sharp but jaggy". We can't even get HD in our rural area, so I'm not even looking at HD televisions. That, and everything is either humungous (40"+) or small (20" LCD screens). I can't put the first set in my house, and I can't view the smaller ones. I'm sure they're out there, but where's the 27"-32" screens? Anyway, HD isn't going to catch on overnight just because our high overlords in Congress have made a mandate (No Foley jokes, please!). Bravo to Nintendo on putting gameplay above graphics!

Re:Maybe I'm missing something?

[Bigboote66]

You're not looking hard enough. CNet lets you search for TVs based on a wide variety of criteria. Here's the page that shows you all HDTVs broken down by screen size. There are over 250 models that are between 25" and 40".

Satellite solves the problem of no local HD programming. And are you really sure that your rural area receives no HDTV over the air? Unless you're in the mountains, chances are that you can receive over-the-air signals. HDTV signals travel farther & with much less opportunity for signal degradation. Where I live the standard channels come in poorly or not at all, yet the HD version of each one is crystal clear. Check out AntennaWeb to see if you are within range, and what sort of antenna you'd need to receive them.

-BbT

Re:Maybe I'm missing something?

[Jartan]

That, and everything is either humungous (40"+) or small (20" LCD screens). I can't put the first set in my house, and I can't view the smaller ones. I'm sure they're out there, but where's the 27"-32" screens?

This has been my problem as well. The truth is you can probably find any size of HDTV you want but if you are shopping for something inbetween $300 and $4000 you are going to get poor value for your money.

People quote cheap HDTV's but they are usually talking about tiny 17" inch sets that nobody really wants.

I can maybe afford a PS3 and games but I can't afford a PS3 and a 800 dollar HDTV set on top of it.

PC Gaming is dead though apparently. People are getting tired of spending a massive 200~300 dollars a year to keep their PC's in the mid level range required to play all games!

Re:Maybe I'm missing something?

[Osty]

I've seen King Kong running on the XBox 360 on an LCD screen at Walmart and was underwhelmed. Everything looked "sharp but jaggy".

King Kong was a launch title, and also ported to many other platforms. As such, it's not a great indicator of 360 HD graphical prowess. From launch, take a look at PGR3 or Call of Duty 2. Or look at more recent games like Oblivion or Dead Rising.

We can't even get HD in our rural area, so I'm not even looking at HD televisions.

I bet you can, if you looked into it a little bit more. My parents live in a rural area and they can get several OTA HD channels. If all else fails, you can always get DirecTV.

That, and everything is either humungous (40"+) or small (20" LCD screens). I can't put the first set in my house, and I can't view the smaller ones. I'm sure they're out there, but where's the 27"-32" screens?

Indeed, where are they? Certainly a major retailer like Wal*Mart would have 26"-36" HD sets ...

Bravo to Nintendo on putting gameplay above graphics!

The flip side, boo to Nintendo for forcing my TV to have to upscale the 480p output from the Wii, which could potentially lead to lag in the gameplay! The Right Way(tm) to do this would've been for them to include an internal scaler that scales all output to a chosen resolution regardless of what resolution it was rendered. That's what the Xbox 360 does. Most games do render at 540p or 720p, but you can choose to output them at 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, and various other VGA resolutions (and soon 1080p). Gone are the days where each game gets to choose what resolution it supports. The games should render at whatever native resolution they want and let the console take care of scaling appropriately. (and the Xbox 360 has a very good scaler!)

Re:Maybe I'm missing something?

[singingjim]

I just bought a 26" Sharp LCD HDTV ($699 at COSTCO) and it's friggin' magnificent. Take my word, please, HDTV is AWESOME. Games look super sweet on them, but watching shows produced for HDTV makes me feel like I felt when I went from dialup to broadband. I don't know how I lived without it. Especially if your are any kind of sports fan. I just surf the HDTV channels now for any kind of HDTV content that I can gaze at.

Re:Maybe I'm missing something?

[whoop]

to keep their PC's in the mid level range required to play all games!

If you can afford to play "all games" for the PC, you could afford $3000+ tv and $1000 console + games just as easily. Let's see, $4000 / $40 per PC game .. that's 100 games worth. That's maybe a year's worth of all PC releases. There you go.

Of course, smarter folks find a couple of games they like and have good replayability, then sit on those for a few years so they don't have to constantly spend money to upgrade their PC. WoW and Half-Life 2 play as good on my Sempron 3000 (not Athlon64) as they did 2+ years ago. Then I have a few thousand to spend on the wife, kids, and myself. Win!

Re:Maybe I'm missing something?

[Anonymous Coward]

The flip side, boo to Nintendo for forcing my TV to have to upscale the 480p output from the Wii...

Um, they're not forcing your TV to do anything. My TV has 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i modes and you can switch between them. Are you running a TV from the 1980s or something?

Re:Maybe I'm missing something?

[Osty]

Um, they're not forcing your TV to do anything. My TV has 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i modes and you can switch between them. Are you running a TV from the 1980s or something?

No, I have a DLP TV which runs at a native 720p resolution. While it supports 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i, it does so by converting any non-720p signals to 720p. In some cases, and I've only seen it rarely, the TV can introduce some lag due to this conversion process. Mostly, I rarely notice it because most of my components do 720p natively (PC, Xbox 360, upconverting DVD player).

Re:Maybe I'm missing something?

[IpalindromeI]

Anyway, HD isn't going to catch on overnight just because our high overlords in Congress have made a mandate

Note that Congress is mandating a switch to digital television, not high-definition television. SDTV can be digital, too.

One of the things I've wondered...

[Jerf]

One of the things I've wondered is if Nintendo has looked into the feasibility of releasing the HDWii in, say, three years. The Wii is supposed to already support widescreen at 480p (I think; google searching was a bit inconclusive but pointed to widescreen support), and the hardest part of upscaling to HD resolutions would be handling varying aspect ratios sanely in the game, as there would be no way whatsoever to hack that in later. (You can handle them non-sanely, but not sanely.)

If they decided to design a new graphics card that was designed from day one to have the exact same performance as the current one, only at a higher resolution, it could be feasible.

Then, once HD adoption has improved and once the graphics card prices have dropped, they could release an HD Wii that played the old games, only at higher resolution, and the games should mostly work. (A few small patches may be needed, and the odd game may not work at all.) This way, they don't go to market with expensive new features most people can't use until most people can use them; best of both worlds.

Polygon-based 3D game scale up really nicely. You wouldn't get higher-resolution textures magically out of the deal, but just actually rendering the whole HD space, rather than upsampling an SD-sized signal, would look much sharper. You might see a bit more pop-in and it's faintly possible the balance of some games might be broken by being able to see a bit farther, but mostly it ought to work.

Yes, there are technical issues, but I don't think they are insurmountable, and even if there is some set of games that just don't work in HD, you can always just run them in SD mode, which the HDWii would need to support anyhow. (Especially if they completely replace the Wii with the HDWii, instead of maintaining two product lines.) Probably the biggest issue would be if games strongly assume SD resolution with some sort of pointer, although it's still possible that such games would still work, it's just that you'd still only be able to point with SD-pixel resolution, which probably most people wouldn't even notice. (Any game that asks for pixel-perfect pointing almost certainly won't be fun anyhow...)

Re:One of the things I've wondered...

[brkello]

No no no no no no. The Wii will not have HD support. The Wii is betting that HD won't be important this generation just like they bet that Internet gaming would not be important on the gamecube. If and when HD has become common place, they will integrate it with their next console. Having an upgraded version of your console mid generation is just a way to piss a lot of your consumers off. So I buy a Wii now...they come up with this a year or two later? Am I supposed to buy the thing again? Next console that comes out, I won't buy it and just wait for their updated release that has everying integrated it should have had in the first place. If they do anything HD, it won't be until their next gen unit. If it turns out to be a mistake for Nintendo, then they will live with it. They seem to always be behind the times (examples being using a disc format and integrating the Internet). They let the other companies innovate (it isn't really innovation, more evolution). Now they use a disc format and have Internet integration. At least now they have a new controller that (if done well) looks like it could pay off for them.

(and yes, I hate that there are different console versions of Sony and MS)

Re:One of the things I've wondered...

[IpalindromeI]

Having an upgraded version of your console mid generation is just a way to piss a lot of your consumers off.

Maybe you're forgetting that they've already done this, multiple times: Gameboy -> Gameboy Pocket; Gameboy Advance -> Gameboy Advance SP -> Gameboy Micro; DS -> DS Lite.

I don't think they've done it with a non-handheld yet, but many people that owned an original Gameboy Advance or DS seemed quite willing to buy the newer ones when they came out.

What we need

[Anonymous Coward]

640k ought to be enough for everyone.

Wii Lite or Wii SP

[sottitron]

I was thinking the same thing. Look at the Gameboy Advance to Gameboy Advance SP cycle or the DS to DS Lite. What is to say that they won't release a minor update that enables HD and just plays SD games the same way ESPN shows SD TV (with bars on either side of the widescreen)... Oh, and the new video card (that I would imagine would be necessary) could do slick pixel shading or upconverting like the Bleem could do on Gran Turismo I...

"Need" is a Strong Word

[MeanderingMind]

To harp entirely on the semantic, there is probably a near zero number of gamers who "need" HDTV. These people should be found and given treatment for their unhealthy obsession.

For the rest of us, we'll either make do without and enjoy looking like a nutcase swingling an oblong white doohickey around or we'll get 57.352" wide screen dilithium concentrate HD TVs and enjoy killing zombies in glorious resolutions.

Either way I'm stoked.

Who Cares

[MBCook]

Note: I just bought an HDTV on Saturday.

I really don't care. I'm glad I can play Dead Rising in HD (as soon as I buy it and a 360). But I don't really care that much. The 'cube looks fine already, and it would actually look BETTER on my new TV because I could run it in progressive scan. Then again I still thing Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island are two of the best looking games ever. I wouldn't care if new games were released that looked just like those. If they were just as fun, I'd be thrilled.

I'm glad I got an HDTV, and I'm sure it will make games look pretty. I think the biggest difference HDTVs will have over SD with games is the extra screen realestate afforded by being 16:9 instead of 4:3.

An extra sharp picture is nice, but having a new TV isn't going to make ME go out and buy a new console just so games look better, just like buying a new console wouldn't make me go buy a new TV just so games look a hair better (if we were going from B&W to Color, that would be different).

TV viewers will drive HDTV, not gamers

[jchenx]

IMHO, it's TV viewers that will drive this whole HDTV-debate, not gamers. So to talk about whether or not gamers really need HDTV is moot.

We all seem to forget that the primary use for the TV in most households, is to view TV shows. If Joe Bob is going to get an HDTV, it's not because he or his kids want to play video games in HD, but because the whole family has this need: Mom wants to see her prime-time shows in all HD glory, Dad wants to catch his football shows in HD, the kids want to play games in HD, etc.

So, is HD adoption in general growing in the US? It certainly is. Every holiday season, it seems like HDTV is the "big gift" to save up for. If not then, its the tax-return season. Or around the time of the Superbowl (guys want to get a new TV in time for the "big game"). Eventually we'll get to the point where half the country now has some sort of HD TV set. It's anyone's guess how long it will be (I'm betting it won't be for another 5-10 years).

Re:TV viewers will drive HDTV, not gamers

[duerra]

I have an HDTV, but no HD programming. Why? Because it is too expensive (imagine that). I'll get HD the day I can get my basic cable, without a cable box, in HD, for only marginally higher cost. As it turns out, instead of paying $12/month for cable, I would have to jump up to something like $60/month to get any HD. Not acceptable for me.

Re:TV viewers will drive HDTV, not gamers

[jchenx]

Weird, I have to check my cable bill to be sure, but HD programming is only $5/month for me. It's another $5/month to rent their HD-DVR box. I use Comcast and live in Washington, close to Seattle.

Then again, I started off with the digital cable package already, with Starz and HBO, so my bill was already pretty high. That might be the problem. You might not be able to get HD programming unless you already have many of the premium items.

Re:TV viewers will drive HDTV, not gamers

[duerra]

Exactly, it is only $5/month more if you are already paying up the wazoo for cable. I want to be able to get my basic cable package in HD for only $5/month more. They don't let me do this.

Sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd use 512*384 if more games supported it. (For better frame rate; my eyes don't notice much of a difference in IQ.)

Re:Sure.

[eno2001]

IQ? Are you saying your eyes are stupid? ;P

Re:Sure.

[MikeBabcock]

From 640x480 I hope you mean ... if you can't tell the image quality difference between 1920x1080 and 512x384, you're legally blind -- go get checked, really.

Re:Sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's what I meant. I can very easily tell the difference between 512*384 and 1920*1080.

Stupid question.

[eebra82]

Do Gamers Really Need HDTV?

I think the question is obvious and pointless. Of course we can live without it, but what we all have in common is that we're paying for what we're getting. Nintendo isn't launching a high-end station and this reflects the price of the console too. So a person who is willing to piss away $500 on a graphics card is also more likely going to need HDTV resolution on a gaming console, while a guy who spends $100 on a GeForce 6600GT can settle for less.

No one really needs anything. We don't need to play games. We don't need fast cars. We don't need a THz CPU. But when it all comes down to it, it just shows that what we're getting is what we're ready to pay for. If nVidia can ship and sell expensive graphics cards and if Sony can sell the PS3, then there's surely a request for HDTV, but certainly no need.

There's always time for zombie smooshing!

[Channard]

Thing is, if you have a SD TV in the UK, you can have your 360 connected via a scart cable. Which is as sharp a picture as you can get on a SD telly, and the text is entirely legible in that mode. As for HD games, my thoughts on it mirror my thoughts on HD movies. If a game needs to me HD to be worth playing, then it isn't worth playing at all.

Re:There's always time for zombie smooshing!

[MikeBabcock]

I play numerous game types that will benefit hugely from HD resolutions. War games with large numbers of characters on screen at once are one, RPGs and games of their ilk with many objects in inventories are another (more items with smaller icons that are just as easy to see at HD as their counterparts were in SD (think Morrowind vs. Oblivion on XBox vs. 360).

I've always thought the "needs HD" argument was stupid in the first place. Nobody needs HD like nobody needs a faster car or a nicer coloured iPod or fancier looking computer cases. What Sony and Microsoft think they're doing is giving us something we'll enjoy and want and I think they're right.

If you don't like the benefit of HD gaming, then just lose out for a couple years, don't go crying to me about it. I haven't played PC games at resolutions neering SDTV in many years now and I don't want to go back to 640x480 for the next generation of console gaming. 1920x1080 is just awsome in comparison.

Re:There's always time for zombie smooshing!

[steveo777]

I agree that Sony and MS are giving us what they think we want. But they're missing the fact that many of us do not or can not. The post you responded to had a very good point. If it's not playable on standard def, it's not worth playing. But to continue the point, I would add that if your game is not playable, or has reduced functionality at low resolutions, then label it clearly, so people don't buy it thinking it'll be just fine.

Re:There's always time for zombie smooshing!

[GrayCalx]

Thing is, if you have a SD TV in the UK, you can have your 360 connected via a scart cable.

Hehehehe, "scart cable". Silly Brits, talking all adorable and filthy at the same time. :)

Re:There's always time for zombie smooshing!

[iainl]

Running in Component on a US TV is as good as running in RGB SCART on a UK one, actually - it's just if you're using nasty composite (i.e. you've not bought any leads other than the ones that come in the Core box) that it's completely hideous.

Personally, though, I couldn't see the point of buying a 360 until I got my HDTV, so I've not tested it.

Re:There's always time for zombie smooshing!

[MikeBabcock]

Thief was a great PC game a few years back, but if you didn't have a good sound card and good speakers, you wouldn't enjoy it half as much as someone who did. It was one of the first games to truly immerse you in your audio environment and use it as cues in the game so thoroughly.

If the next version of Dynasty Warriors has thousands of dudes on the battlefield at once (I sure hope it does), they're going to look like crap in SD and that's to be expected. Do you truly believe that any game released on a 'high definition' console should have to label its games in this way? Besides, its Microsoft who says gaming should be at 720p and Sony who said that they should be playable at 480i but look better at 1080p. I agree, but there's playable and then there's playable. If you can't tell which guys are badguys cause there's only 6 pixels drawing him ...

Need?

[The-Bus]

Need? No. I don't need HDTV. I don't need games. But once you've played games in HD or seen TV/movies in HD, it's difficult to go back. Certainly, I still play a lot of games not in HD but beyond the increased resolution there's also a wider canvas, which makes any good game better.

It's a silly question.

[singingjim]

Silly in the sense that it's just a natural progression of technology. Do we need broadband instead of dialup? Need? No. Want? Hells yeah! Need isn't an appropriate word when talking about playing games. I will tell you one thing though, try playing Dead Rising on a regular TV and then on a HDTV. If you want to read anything on the screen then you NEED HDTV.

hdtv

[kevin.fowler]

I bought a 15" LCD HDTV for a few different reasons, I had a decent sized (27") CRT TV in the living room already, and a 5 year old bulky 13" TV from college in my room (which I was replacing). I wanted to maximize space and get something that will still be useful in the future (in 10 years I can see this TV being mounted in the wall in my bathroom.) It's useful as a midrange computer monitor with cable TV picture in picture while surfing the web, and HD cable is only a $5 a month more. Going HD is 100% worth it if you're buying new stuff, but if you're content with what you've got, stick with it.

Re:hdtv

[docrmc]

Kevin, u make an excellent point, which i take in conjunction w. revlayle's opinion on market visibility.

A screen is not one of those things, yet, where i need every feature packed into 1 item,, i.e. i have a 15" LCD screen in my room, because a) i need the space, and 2) i limit my resolution - ive an allergy to light and (therefore) bad eyes.. think of it as forced health insurance :P
Perhaps this is why i am willing to play a scant number of games on my PC, or maybe its jus that i prefer a comfortable, sprawled, gaming position w. a 32" tv set, that happens to be hooked to my PS2.
The thing is, that tv, which serves both my games and my extensive tv/movie addiction has no HDTV cability, which is just fine. All of my games are served well by it, i get (98.8% of) all programming on HDTV channels, and there is no fine print i absolutely must read, besides, yano, people trying to sell me stuff.
But if i were to buy another one in the near future, it would have HDTV, not because i wanted to add the handful of channels (1.2% of programming) to my viewing; not because ive fallen in love w. a PS3 (though were shackin' up); and not because ive fallen pray to Walmart subliminal suggestion. I will because, by that time, that mind-numbing, work-defying flat screen that i plan to put on my wall better damn well have every trinket they can currently think of.
But im not the usual schmoe. Gaming is proving a lucrative market in which big buckets are shelled out by gamers to accessorize, color-coordinate and theme their consoles. Walmart does the greatest retail, and their customers are oft influenced by the unsubtle market pushes of certain items -admit it, were switchin over to those energy saving bulbs since Walmart "went green". So if the walmart is pushing the HDTV driven games, curiously, right next to section with HDTV sets, then we know, HDTV is really in.

better graphics != worse gameplay

[Anonymous Coward]

Having hd output at least would certainly future-proof the console, and thats never a bad thing. Nintendo should have at least given the wii the ability to output in hd, a feature that existed on both the ps2 and xbox. Obviously it doesnt have the power to drive games all the time in it but for certain features like the basic user interface, marketplace, and web browsing, it would have been much appreciated. After using it in high res once, I couldnt stand running the menu-intensive gui for xbmc on my modded xbox below 1080i ever again. For this reason dont expect much from web browsing on wii, even aside from the text input situation.

That having been said, better graphics and better gameplay do not have to be mutually exclusive. Call me old fashioned, but I want both.

The 360 in standard definition is not all that impressive of a jump but in hd it most certainly creates a far more immersive gameplay experience in a way that the wii simply cannot match. Thats not all there is to a game, obviously, but lets be real- the wiimote does not inherently improve gameplay, contrary to what many seem to be saying. In either system's case its the developers that make that happen. I'm just sick of hearing people yell about how hd is worthless and gameplay is more important like for some reason we cant have both. I think the wiimote could make for some drastically different gameplay experiences, but for that reason I'm also withholding my judgement on it until I *gasp* actually play some of the games. Some developers are guaranteed to make some real stinkers that make you wish you had a powerglove.

Oh and on hdtv pricing- with a little shopping around, you can find tons of excellent 32" lcds, a very good living room size (~8' viewing distance) and big enough to start seeing a major difference in hd, for $700-800. With the holiday season approaching dont be surprised to see some absolutely smoking deals.

All in all, I see lots of people complaining about hd/gameplay advances/new consoles when they havent tried or properly researched anything about them whatsoever...hey, just like pretty much everything else in the world.

it's the companies

[Hillie]

It's the game companies pushing for HD, and they're missing the point. They've been missing the point for years.

Here's the point: If I want to play Half-Life 2, or some kind of crazy WW2 shooter, I will go buy it for PC. If I want to play a game like Resident Evil 4, Dead or Alive 4, Eternal Darkness or Madden 05, I will go buy a console.

Others have already illustrated part of this by saying that they would rather use 1600x1200 on a PC rather than 640x480 on a console. Although the resolutions do get a bit higher..

The prices of consoles are getting to the point where one could buy a PC for relatively the same price or cheaper. Nintendo is doing the right thing by keeping the line between console and PC gaming crystal clear, where as Sony and MS are blurring that line, and want to continue to blur it to the point it can no longer be seen.

I for one will be buying the Wii, and boycotting the PS3, at least until they come to their senses and release one that ONLY plays games and doesn't cost a fortune, and well if any great games that are exclusive to the 360 come out then I may buy a 360, but for now Wii is the only thing I'll be buying because I already have several PC's with graphics cards that destroy what the 360 and PS3 are capable of.

It's also worthy I think to say that Nintendo is creating a platform for games that PC can't even begin to touch currently, and thus they are really creating something here. With the XBox 360 and PS3 they're basically creating a souped up version of something that has been done over and over and over again, and can be done better on a PC you probably already own. The Wii is breaking away from that redundant cycle.

Nintendo haters talk about how many times can you rehash Zelda and Mario.. how many times can you make a bloodily-shoot-everything-on-the-screen game and then throw a new name on it. There's redundancies on both sides. At least it appears Ubi-soft is taking a stab at true innovation with Assassin's Creed :)

Short answer: No.

[Ant P.]

Long answer: Game Boy.

Re:Short answer: No.

[Yvan256]

For those interested, the Game Boy display was 160x144 pixels, the Game Boy Advance is 240x160 and the Nintendo DS is 256x192 (each display).

Oh, sheesh!!

[SoulRider]

Do keyboards really need 104 keys?
Do tvs really need 547 channels?
Do cars really need stereo systems?
Does the world really need Zonk?

The answer to these questions is a resounding NO!!!

Personally I always thought the console manufacturers should have "enhanced" the rumble feature (if you know what I mean, nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Kind of an Addiction

[GrayCalx]

I own two HDTVs, so I'm biased. Since I've gotten them a lot of my attention has been "What can get me the most HD?" First I contemplated Voom. Then once Dish acquired them and offered locals in HD I went to Dish. Now I'm all upset that I have to watch Battlestar in standard def.

I digress... once Xbox360 announced HD, I knew I'd be onboard. Same with PS3 (then not so much when i saw the price). I held off for awhile waiting for consoles to show up on shelves and then for friends to get 'em. I was impressed when i saw the 360 on a standard def tv. Xbox-live, download demos, etc etc, but when i saw it on my friend's DLP, I had one within the week. I'm all about the eye-candy, and theres plenty of it.

But again, its all preference right? Some people really dig the Wii's controller and want that system very badly. To me, the graphics just weren't up to what the 360 could do, so I didn't feel the need to wait. Neithers better per say.

So yes, I'm glad they're out there. I hope more and more games with better and better graphics come out. At the same time I hope more innovative games and interfaces come out as well. Is it too much to expect both nowadays?

HDTV is required for next gen

[Frobozz0]

No, there's no need to lock out SD sets right away, but if the US TV is ever going to move to an HD economy gaming will be a large reason why it does. HD gaming will mean HD programming on TV and sales of HDTV's.

Next generation gaming can't be complete without HDTV. I think it is smart to fall back to SD for now, and ween people off those terrible SD sets. While I don't advocate shutting out the SD players of the world for numerous reasons, I think HD is the very definition of next generation gaming. As such, I do not view the Wii as a next generation console. It's an interesting new console, but it's essentially a GameCube. That's not to say it won't be nice for what it is, or even successful in it's own way-- but it simply can not become as ubiquitous as the 360 or PS3 can become because of this missing feature.

As many posters have mentioned before, he gaming resolution consoles in their current generations can output is paltry. Going to HD is critical for entire genre's of gaming to be successful. Ask any sports fan if watching a game in HD is comparable to SD and they will likely laugh. HD is like watching the game. SD is like getting a telegraph of the results.

Re:HDTV is required for next gen

[Al Dimond]

Let's have a counterpoint to this. Clearly you care about having great graphics. I have a 20" SDTV, I don't get good enough reception to justify a bigger/better set and I don't watch enough to justify a cable/sat. subscription. I care about being able to get basic cheap TV.

For you to get your great graphics you have to "ween people off" of SD sets; that is, you want to force me to spend lots of money (I'd bet my TV will be working long after SD broadcasts go dead, and I don't plan on getting a new one until one of those two things happens). If I keep my cheap TV game manufacturers have to write SD-capable games, compromising your graphics.

There are a few people like you and a few people like me. Lots of people fall somewhere in the middle. Eventually HD will take over the middle and then I'll either buy an HD set or abandon TV forever out of hermetic spite. But I'd rather than date came later rather than sooner, and millions of people's bank balances feel the same way.

And as for your "sports fan" example, you're severely exaggerating on both ends. If you actually care about the game you'll get excited about it HD or not rather than sitting 2 feet from the screen, playing with yourself as you count pixels. If you don't care about the game take those three hours and go for a nice long run; no HDTV experience can simulate actually doing something with your life. Frankly, if HDTV draws even more people to spend their entire Sundays on the couch watching beautiful broadcasts of football games I don't consider that a good thing.

Re:HDTV is required for next gen

[Joker1980]

Its funny, but i don't really consider the 360 to be "next gen". Its cool and all and I'll probably pick one up at some point but its just better graphics, With the Wii Nintendo are trying to change the way games are played. It might not work, it might be the best thing ever only time will tell. For me next gen is about breaking boundaries not frame rates.

I think Ninetendo is on the right track

[Opportunist]

Will people have a HD display? Maybe so, but it won't really be mainstream any earlier than 1-2 years from now. Will people want a new console? Ya bet. Do people buy more than one console? Some do, if they have the dough. If they don't, they don't buy consoles costing 600 bucks in the first place.

What I see happen is that people will buy a Wii now and a PS3 later. Because the choice is to either throw down 600 bucks for a console now and have a PS3, or lay down 200 now for a Wii, enjoy it for the 2-3 years 'til they have a HD display and get a PS3 then, when it costs about 200 bucks.

That in turn means that if there's a title available for Nintendo and PS3, Nintendo will get to harvest the royalties. 'cause I doubt many people would buy the same game twice.

Yoshi's Island

[Gogo0]

Yoshi's Island was fun in 320x240, I dont see how it could be more fun in 720x1280.

Revolutions in graphics can drive innovation (see 2d -> 3d), but HD, while nice, does not change anything.
Graphics are nice, but eventually you stop noticing because youre either having fun playing or you turned it off because it isnt fun.

Re:Yoshi's Island

[IntergalacticWalrus]

Yoshi's Island was fun in 320x240,

Actually the SNES ran at the very crappy resoluton of 256x224! Yoshi's Island still looked awesome though (and IMHO still does).

My two cents -

[RoffleTheWaffle]

High definition television, while quite impressively crisp, clear, and sharp, is about as necessary for gaming as it is necessary for watching television. The only people I know who actually own or want to buy high definition televisions are sports buffs, oddly enough, and like to use their screens to view an entirely different kind of game. You know, a real one. Most people I know, gamers included, not only don't care about high definition televisions, they don't want them. They're too expensive, and there's too little special programming available to justify owning them. The promise of HD-Gaming doesn't seem to be swaying my acquaintances much if at all.

The problem here as I see it is that there's just a diminishing return on graphical improvements. We're really getting to the point now where the graphics of most game titles are 'almost real'. (I can think of a few 'almost real' titles from the past couple years right off the top of my head, including Half-Life 2 and Resident Evil 4.) This comes over ten years after we first started seeing rendered 3-D graphics in games featured on consoles and computers. What I'm saying is that I honestly think people are too used to this stuff to really want to dump that much money into a new television for it. Back in 1994 or 1999, this might've been a different story, but let's face it. Titles don't sell anymore just because they have '3-D' in their name, so why the hell is a game console going to sell a television for essentially the same reason?

That high definition television might make the game look better, but until it is a required pre-requisite for playing any and all games for a particular wave of consoles, it's just a selling point - an expensive and unnecessary luxury at best. As for me, I'll stick with my shitty analog television for now. I kind of like how it didn't cost me an arm and a leg and still looks dandy when I play stuff on it.

Re:My two cents -

[GrayCalx]

Hi, I'm Gray. How're you doing? Now you know an HD owner who is definitely not a sports buff.

What I am though is a movie buff, and thats what got me into HD at first. After that I started catching some tv shows in HD, and before you know it I wanted another HDTV upstairs. I definitely agree, I wish there was more programming, but its not all that "little", considering that the networks pretty much run most of their primetime shows in HD. Now if you ONLY watch Spike and SciFi... then yea thats definitely a cost thats hard to justify.

Worked out well for me though because I just got the HD-DVR ($100 from Dish, thanks Dish) and tape all the HD primetime shows. Then just have a TV night for watching the HD programs. Really the only non HD stuff I watch anymore is Battlestar (which will be shown in HD, just on a 6month delay on Universal HD, thanks NBC i believe) the occasional comedy central show, and then ya know like a seinfeld or whatever other crap is on when I get home from work.

But again I do have to agree with you its unnecessary luxury. And i bet the games look as good as they always have on sd tvs. But its like comparing a ps2 to some new PC game. Sure the ps2 game is fun, playable, complete. The PC game is all that and better looking. Now with HD consoles you don't even have to compare console to pc and get into that whole debate. You have (in my opinion) the best of both worlds, the ease/group environment of consoles and the graphic quality of PCs (minus the keyboard/mouse of course).

But when it comes down to it the real thing is cost. If you don't have $1000 disposable cash to spend, you're just getting yourself in trouble trying to get into the HD scene. But if you're doing well in your career and bills are (relatively) taken care of. Its a nice way to treat the family to some higher resolutions.

Re: Wii Supports 480p and 16:9

[trdrstv]

The Wii is supposed to already support widescreen at 480p (I think; google searching was a bit inconclusive but pointed to widescreen support),

It does, and Nintendo announced that 'the majority' of all 1st party games will support both (and Dolby Prologic II). Also it is possible For the Wii to do 720p, or 1080i just as the X-box did for some games.

Do gamers really need games?

[gorbachev]

Not really, so why would we *NEED* HDTVs either.

But then, I want to play games and I want to play them on an HDTV.

stupid question

[capoccia]

asking "do gamers really need..." is really stupid. gamers don't even really need games! shock! shock! they won't die without them. i imagine though that gamers make up a higher fraction of hd owners than the general population.

What do I want?

[SimDarth]

I want to play games on whatever I have available... handheld, older systems, PC, etc. I want to watch football and movies in HD. Just because a game is pretty doesn't make it good. Of course, same goes for football and movies.

Multi-player games

[amorsen]

Multi-player games of the split-screen type benefit greatly from high definition.

Do people really need to play games?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Next!

Re: Get the Wii Component Cables....

[trdrstv]

Ok, I got a HDTV 6 months ago, and the GameCube seriously got an upgrade in Sharpness even through S-Video (I do have component cables, and an early modle GC so I can get Progressive scan). I highly recommend the Component cables.

F-Zero GX is glorious in 16:9 + 480p and it STILL pushes 60 FPS. If you don't have the component cables for the GC, I'd recommend them for the Wii and to replay some of the GC games that support it.

Having recently bought an HDTV...

[Zrith]

I can say that, as a usually fairly casual gamer, high-definition gaming is interesting, but not required. After actually managing to get a pair of component cables for the Gamecube (it's really, really frustrating that these are so hard to get ahold of; I think Nintendo really dropped the ball on this one), I can honestly say that, after playing several games on the systems of the Gamecube's generation, it looks the best. Games on the XBox are generally (even at 480p, which is the highest any of the games we felt like playing supported; I'm sure 720p games would probably look pretty good) not any more attractive than a regular SDTV, and obviously more pixelated. The PS2, aside from a few games that actually look nice, tends to look a bit crappy (disclaimer: this is an older PS2; the newer slim models might be better). The Gamecube? We've played several different games on it now, and every response has been something along the lines of "That's so pretty".

Going into the next generation, assuming the Wii looks as good with its games, there shouldn't be much to complain about on either an HDTV or SDTV. However, there *have* been complaints about games on the 360 not looking right on SDTVs, which, even if they'll be going out of style, are still going to be used for a good number of gamers for a few years to come; that's only going to hurt it. Perhaps the PS3 will be better, though. I probably won't know for a while, however, since I don't know anyone who wants to actually buy one.

you're way off

[Ender Ryan]

My $800 gaming PC plays FEAR with the standard settings at 1280x720(I use my 50" HD set for PC gaming) at an almost constant 60 FPS. FEAR is not considered "last gen" by any stretch, not yet anyway. Oblivion runs very well too, at 720p.

Macs are shit for gaming, BTW, since they don't come with highish-end video cards, which run about $300 retail.

So while PC gaming is still definately more expensive... it's not even close to your ridiculous $4k.

Interesting observation...

[TemporalBeing]

It's interesting to see what people are saying here, especially when people go on to talk about "sales of HD will outpace SD for the first time this year".

For starters, remember that the various companies are generally counting the "ready" sets in their "HD" sales - so HDTV Ready, EDTV Ready, DTV Ready, etc - or at least they use to be. Any where that they are kind of invalidates those figures as those sets do not actually have a tuner - they just have a display capable of showing what they are rated for. Big whup.

There really is no advantage to HDTV/EDTV/DTV/etc over SDTV other than that the Nascar/NFS/NBA/RIAA/MPAA/etc can now control what you can record to your DVR, VCR, DVDRecorder, Computer, etc. Oh - and that stuff won't be going out to all those "ready" boxes should the "broadcast flag" get implemented because they would constitute an 'analog hole'.

Most will not be able to see any difference in color, resolution, etc. (And by most I am talking about the 99% of people in the world that really can't!) I know very few people (perhaps 1 or 2) that can actually see a difference at all - but they also claim to be able to see each individual frame of a 24fps system.

So yeah - Nintendo made the right choice. And they'll reap lots of $$ for it. And they are set up to succeed should HD completely flop - which is highly likely once people realize what is going on with the stuff and older sets. (No, not everyone will be able to afford to upgrade, and even of those who can, not everyone will.)

Re:Interesting observation...

[Anonymous Coward]

I gotta say I strongly disagree with you on a couple of points.

1: for the purpose pf gaming, and in fact most HD content, HD ready is perfectly fine. Your console already oupts in HD, any DVD player already outputs in HD, cable boxes output in HD. Those outputs can be read with any HDTV, tuner or no. The only signals that need a tuner are over the air HDTV, which is a very small portion of the available content, and doesn't figure into the gaming discussion at all.

2: very very few people cannot see the difference between a 360 game in HD, and the same game on an SD set, unless the set is really small. So if you can't see the difference, I'm betting it is an issue with the size of the set. Same goes for sporting events. No comparison between the two. The difference between a DVD on an HD set, and a movie in HD on an HD set is much smaller, you can tell, but you really have to look for it. And the result is not always for the better.

3: have you ever tried playing a fps at 24fps? It makes your eyes bleed.

Do we need it? Irrelevent.

[rikkitikki]

Maybe it's just because I'm in Silicon Valley, but when I go to the various major electronics retailers (Best Buy, Fry's, heck even Sears), it's getting more and more difficult to even purchase a new SDTV. Sure they're there, but they're tucked down the isle at the end of the TV area or someplace else inconvenient. Most of the floor real estate has gone to HDTVs. I bet SDTVs will be even more difficult to find a year or two from now.

So then the question becomes whether you want your console to take advantage of the new HDTV you just bought to replace your old aging/dead SDTV.

Console Jokes

[Explodo]

As a PC and Console gamer (XBox 360), and an HDTV owner, I can say that consoles at 1080i are still disappointing, not so much for how they look, but for how they perform. Several of the BIG xbox 360 titles show signs of slowdown when run at 1080i. Need for Speed: Most Wanted gets really nasty if you try to play split screen at 1080i. Madden 07 seems a little bit slower at 1080. Not all games slow down, but the fact that 1080 is pushing the "next-gen" console system's abilities reflects poorly on rushing to be first to market. I don't run any games under 1280x1024 on my PC, and several games at much higher resolutions, so who's the winner there?

Games on HDTV yes, movies - not so much.

[AbRASiON]

IMHO POST.

As far as I'm concerned, games DO need HDTV - we look at games far more than we do movies.
When I say look I mean examine the finer detail, need the ability to look at clear, crisp inventory menu's for example.
Need to distinguish between a bad guy in light green with a small yellow * on his uniform or a good guy in dark green with a small red * on his uniform.

Etc, etc etc.

Also sometimes the pictue is sitting still, same scene for a minute or two, a movie however is generally always moving and you absorb atmosphere, storyline and other such things in a different fasion to a game.

All that being said, Sony pushing 1080p in my opinion is totally dense, 720p is fine by me and I'd love it if all consoles used it (Wii) but that being said if the machine doesn't have the power for mandatory 720p like the X360's requirements then don't force the devs to do it, so I spose Nintendo have made the right move, I'm sure some of their 480p games will look quite good.

Multiple monitors in PC gaming?

[tepples]

If you really want more space, you can even get two regular size monitors for cheaper than one huge one and have more screen real estate.

But do PC games support more than one monitor? Can I plug in four joypads and have players 1 and 2 look at monitor 1 and players 3 and 4 look at monitor 2?

What the "next generation" really needs

[springbox]

Anti-aliasing! I hope at least ONE next gen system will make good use of it, because the jagged edges are quite noticable in some games. (It would be hilarious if the PS3's games bypass FSAA for speed.)

Re:What the "next generation" really needs

[donaldm]

As far as anti aliasing goes this is an issue for the console. When the PS2 first came out some of the first gen games had very noticeable jagged edges which in-turn caused many people to rubbish the PS2. There were many red faces when Sony came out with a simple fix which the designers should have known about in the first place.

hardware standpoint - Wii's fading

[eamonman]

For the last three years, LCD 'generations' have been advancing quickly. Gen 6 and 7 allowed LCD's to start encroach on Plasma-sized screens. Now with Sharp, Sony/Samsung and the other biggies opening/starting production of Gen 8 screens, we are most likely going to seeing prices continue to drop across all flat-screen markets even through next year (when those 8th gens ship). If you've been following the steep drop of LCDs (and as a result, the Plasma and DLPs), you've seen crazy 50%-60% drop of prices in the last year. Where even 3 years ago, HD sets were only aroudn 2500 or so, now they lower end 'big screen' ones are droppign to near 1000 levels (admittedly the short-life DLPs). But you can get 40" for 1000 now.

It sounds unreal, but I'd guess that the 42" plasmas might even hit 1200 next year. Maybe not the 1080's but at least 720's might.

Based on that, parents and other buyers that haven't jumped on the HDTV bandwagon will surely switch.

And once they switch, they'll notice that systems like Wii without even 720p, their games will look like crap on their brand new affordable HDTV units. So that segment might be tempted to go with the PS3/XBox360. Premium HDTV owners, owners of the latest 7th gen 1080p $3000+ LCD screen will not notice, as not only will their screens make any resolution look good, but they will probably go with their PS3/Xbox fix anyhow.

So really, with the HDTV market dropping, the Wii might only have a small window before HD adoption will start pushing them out. And that window really seems like it's shutting (search for Samsung or Sharp on bensbargains or techbargains for a quick look, or look at something like nextag and see those bearlike prices for any flatscreen in the last few years)

Re:hardware standpoint - Wii's fading

[donaldm]

I live in Australia and currently I see the majority of HDTV's with 720p (plasma and LCD) capability , however what is confusing to many is the fact that standard definition (SD) plasma TV's are also available at a AU$300 to AU$1000 (approx AU$1 = US$0.75) price differential and unless you know this and can compare many buyers do perceive that they are getting a bargain so called HDTV set when in fact they are getting a SD TV. This will cause a great deal of confusion when deciding which new gaming machine to buy especially when you can't detect much of a difference between graphics when viewed on a SD TV.

Currently 1080p in Australia is more expensive at about 30% to 100% dearer than it's 720p equivalent, however that will change very soon when Sony, Sharp and others bring out their LCD 1080p HDTV's. This sounds good but I have seen some confusing trends in that some 1080p HDTV's are really 720p with the ability to display 1080p content. Even more disturbing is the fact that many sales reps don't even know how to correctly advise prospective buyers.

In some respect this could actually assist the Wii but if and when this confusion is fixed only then people will be able to see significant differences in display types, whether this will influence their purchase remains to be seen.

On a slightly different note. If parents are going to buy a gaming machine for their kids it would be more common to buy a gaming machine for the TV their kids are going to use and in the majority case that would be a SD TV (great for Wii, PS2 and Xbox here) in their bedroom or play area and not the HDTV (better for Xbox 360 and PS3) in the living area unless the parent(s) are into gaming and if only one is a gamer and the other one isn't then I can foresee issues, since some compromise has to be arrived at. This would be a topic for another discussion.

Note: Just because I made the assumption "better for" the Wii would still look good on a HDTV as well so the choice of which next gen machine is the best buy is really up to the consumer and what they perceive are good or appropriate.

No.

[GWBasic]

No, gamers are perfectly happy playing their Atari 2600s on their black and white Zeniths.

Re:No.

[wikthemighty]

The picture on our Zenith got more and more squished until it finally died.

Nowadays I'm very happy playing my Atari 2600 on my 36' Wega ;)

Yeah, I want HD

[__aailob1448]

I've tried HD. It's good, it's really worth it, it really makes a huge difference in graphical quality. Of course gamers want HDTV, they just might not be able to afford it. But they will be within 2 years, guaranteed. Heck, HDTVs are already available at walmart for less than $500.

pan and scan dvds

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, I need HD. I hate sports, love movies and national geographic.

do you still buy full screen dvds? I know for sure I dont. Progressive scan player, wide screen only please. /37" widescreen HD CRT with monster cables all around

Certain kinds of game need HD.

[master_p]

There is a kind of games that certainly need HD...these games are those that offer a view of action from a distance: sports games, strategy games, FPSs with lots of open spaces and others. In these types of games, high definition certainly plays a role: it allows the player to see what the enemy is up to from far away, thus affecting the gameplay.

Maybe it's time to stop working at McDonalds

[Anonymous Coward]

Minimum wage just doesn't cut it when you're 30 years old.

Dreamcast

[Anonymous Coward]

The Dreamcast, while not outputting to HD had the VGA option, which let users connect their DC to a VGA monitor. It offered a very crisp picture in comparison to standard television. I played my Dreamcast more often from my computer desk, than I did from my television set.

Now if I had a HDTV, and I had a console that output to a computer monitor(HDMI, or VGA), I would pick the computer monitor without even thinking about it. I already have a decent gaming set up for my PC that meets my needs. I have a desk I can place a keyboard, mouse, gaming joystick(I don't play fighting games with a handheld controller), etc. onto. It is the closest to the arcades without having to have a cabinet.

definitely not

[rabbot]

I've had an HDTV for a few years now, and I still couldn't care less about console gaming in HD. Sure, I like watching movies and sports in HD, but that doesn't mean everything else is garbage now.

There are a lot of people now trying to justify their Xbox360 and future PS3 purchases by telling everyone that we need HD and that HD is the future of gaming. It doesn't make a difference gameplay wise. You're not going to get some life altering experience from playing games at higher resolutions.

We don't need it and it's not what the majority of people have, or will have in the next 5 years. When they can deliver consoles that support HD for a reasonable price to consumers who actually have HDTVs, then obviously things will be different...but for now it's just not worth it for the average consumer.

That's what the...

[wikthemighty]

...Trance Vibrator is for!

Underscan on a Plasma

[slateX]

I just bought a plasma, and it really irks me that many gamecube games (running at 480p over component cables)have black bars on the left and right hand sides. I have heard that this is intentional underscan, but it messes with my plasma burn-in to have unused areas of the screen like that. I really hope that their widescreen wii games fix this.

What kind of gamers?

[jrshabadoo]

Short answer: yes.

Longer answer: Depending on the type of gamer you are, PC or console, you would have different opinions. Being a PC gamer, I run everything at relatively high res, 1280x1024 usually. That's technically HD right? Considering most SD TVs are 320, or 480 in res, the difference is like looking at smooth blobs vs ... anything else! I need razor sharp, crystal clear text/models/textures.

It also depends on the equipment. I recently got an HD TV, and hooked it up to my 7900GTX. All looked pretty darn good on the 50in screen, but still not the best. In the end, I opted for my much smaller, low response rate, sharp edged LCD instead. I'll stick with the TV to watch movies and BSG.

To all you console gamers with no HD, you have no idea what you are missing.

Don't get me wrong though, games still need to be fun. With all the advanced hardware out there nowadays, why are some still in SD?

j

For me...?

[Sharpfish]

For me.. pretty much YES. HD is needed NOW that I have used it for a while. It's similar to going back to 8 bit from an Amiga it makes that much difference to my discerning eyes! ;) For the next person? It depends, some will consider it vital some won't care a bit. For Games themselves? No. A good game is a good game even if on a tiny LCD (DS). However resolution is always important and IF the game can be clearer and more detailed then great. HD is here to stay and is only going to become more common. And it's not before time. Dead Rising ( http://sharpfish.realityfakers.com/?p=85 ) on the Xbox 360 showed us that HD can make a big difference (even if it was only to counter a QA mistake on Capcom's part which could have been avoided). Having played the game on a SD and HD set it's like it's running on a different system alltogether!